The Olympics... and beyond

 I really thought that the postponed Tokyo Olympics, moved from 2020 to 2021, would be the most confusing thing I have to deal with in my job. But as the saying goes, Beijing 2022 grabbed the microphone and said, "hold my beer." The entire process of getting prepared to go to China has been an absolute cluster on my end. There was the entire process of trying to get them to take my money, which was exacerbated by their need to get the funds in Chinese currency instead of US (like the other three Olympic hosts have done), then the addition of purpose codes that were never relayed to us and the like. But, as my last blog post said, that was taken care of, finally and my hotel is there and waiting for me when I arrive in Beijing. Or, that is, if I arrive in Beijing. Getting there, as referenced in a previous blog post is proving more and more difficult. The representative from Cathay Pacific was in regular communication for a few weeks as we tried to work out a schedule that wor...

As I prepare to head to my third Winter Olympics in just a few months, another piece of the puzzle finally fell in to place last week and another piece that emerged a few weeks back, got closer to being put in place. The thing that has been the biggest problem for me when it comes to Beijing 2022 has been getting my accommodation funds to the right people. When I got the first invoice, I went to my bank to make a wire transfer, only to find out that my bank did not do transfers in Chinese currency, which was a requirement of the Beijing Organizing Committee. So, I had to set up an account at another bank and quickly made the wire transfer. Of course, it wasn't that easy, as the first transfer didn't go through because of an error somewhere in the paperwork. On the second try, we got it through, but the "purpose code" required for China was not correct and that correction had to be made. Thanks to the wonderful work of Melissa at the Wolfeboro branch of Citizen's B...

The countdowns seem to be pretty prevalent the last few years. There was the original one-year countdown to Tokyo 2020 that turned into a second one-year countdown when the Olympics were postponed. There were celebrations for six months out for Tokyo (twice) and another for the upcoming Beijing Games.  Today, the countdown clock toward Beijing turns to 100 days. That doesn't seem like a short period of time, but in the overall perspective, it is not a long period of time. The process for Beijing began well over a year ago and amped up before Tokyo even happened this summer, as I was sending money to China before I left for Japan. So 100 days is a relatively short period of time. Yesterday also saw the release of the first edition of the playbooks, which are the documents that detail the processes that the press (and other Olympic family members) have to go through before leaving for China, once they are there and as they prepare to leave. These playbooks were implemented for the To...

 In my last blog post, I speculated that the COVID-19 protocols put into place for the Beijing Olympics in February were going to be a pain. After a summer of protocols in Tokyo, this comes as no surprise to me and I am prepared for what comes down the pike. Much to my surprise, the first step in those protocols was released shortly after the last blog post, as the Beijing 2022 Organizing Committee presented its key COVID-19 countermeasures to the International Olympic Committee Executive Board Meeting. While these were not the detailed measures that we need to follow, they were an overall look at what we should be seeing when we as media arrive in China for the Olympics this coming winter. While vaccines are not mandatory, anyone who has not received one of the COVID vaccines will have to serve a 21-day quarantine upon their arrival in Beijing. This goes for athletes and other games participants. Those who are vaccinated will enter what Beijing is calling a "closed-loop managemen...

I've been to three Olympics and they've all had their things that went well and things that didn't go as well. That is to be expected. But, one thing they all had in common was that they kept me busy. There was always something going on, always some place to go to cover an event or interview an athlete. However, in most cases, the work that I had to do over in Sochi, PyeongChang and Tokyo was not really much more than I am used to doing back here in the United States. Tokyo was a bit of a different story than my first two Olympic experiences. The simple fact of the matter is that summer is a slower time for me. I have fewer events to cover and fewer places to go than during the school year. So, in many ways, those few weeks this summer were my busiest summer weeks in a few years. But now that I am gearing up for a trip to Beijing, I am in the middle of one of the two busiest seasons of my year. The fall and spring sports seasons have been absolutely impossible the last year...

It seems like Tokyo 2020 just ended, even though it was a month ago now. But, while I was in Tokyo, I got an e-mail from the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee asking me to confirm all my details for the Beijing Olympics. I wasn't quite ready to deal with that while dealing with all the Tokyo stuff, so I waited until I got home and had a little time to take care of business. I did take care of that paperwork a week or so ago, but it just seems like it is so quick on the heels of Tokyo that I am not quite ready for it to be here. Obviously, the postponement of the 2020 Olympics for a year contributed to the short time between the two Olympics for me. However, this is also a new experience for me in that even if the Olympics had gone off as planned in 2020, there was still a shorter time than between my previous Olympic experiences. After Sochi in 2014, which was my first Olympic experience, there was four years before I was back in the Olympics in PyeongChang. While the ...

I promised a look back at Tokyo and after a few days at home, two early mornings of baking, three late nights of rehearsals for Laughing Stock (opening tonight) and a great in-studio interview with the Morning Buzz, it is time to look back and reflect on what was certainly a unique experience. I am going to take the whole return trip out of the discussion here. That was a miserable experience (my suitcase arrived on Thursday) that had nothing to do with the Olympics. As highlighted in my previous post, that is all on Air Canada and can't reflect on the Tokyo experience. All in all, this was definitely a unique situation. It started with a three-day quarantine in a tiny hotel room and ended with my first ever Olympic ceremony. In between, there were countless long bus rides, plenty of great Olympic action and plenty of heat and humidity. In my previous Olympics, I had the chance to cover athletes that I covered while they were in high school or athletes that had other local connecti...

My last blog post said that my next blog post would be a decompression upon my return, a reflection of the Tokyo Olympics. However, the experiences of the last two days has led me to a different step, though there will still be a reflection on the Olympics in the next few days. If you had told me that the experience of hanging around the Tokyo airport for more than four hours upon arrival, filling out paperwork and taking COVID tests, would be the worst of my traveling adventures, I would have believed you. But, then Air Canada stepped in and made sure I had the most miserable travel days I have ever experienced. And as I write this on Tuesday afternoon on my couch, it’s still not over. I arrived at Narita Airport three and a half hours before my scheduled flight out of Tokyo, which was slated for 5:30 p.m. on Monday. We had been advised to get their early, since it was anticipated that the airport would be busy and it was. However, because I downloaded my boarding pass before leaving ...

My first Olympic ceremony experience was certainly interesting and was a fitting close to this long strange trip that has been the Tokyo Olympics. All the media transportation guides advised us to arrive early, since there is a lot of journalists moving in and out of the venue as the evening moves along and in order to keep the transportation moving, they wanted traffic spread out a little bit. I got to the Olympic Stadium about 4:30 p.m., well ahead of the 8 p.m. scheduled start time. I spent a little time in the venue media center in the bowels of the stadium and then moved up to the stands. I was glad that I made my way up to the stands early, as I was able to get a tabled tribune seat, which is a seat with a table, monitor and power outlets. Many of the people that showed up later did not have that option and sat in the regular stadium seats.  While sitting there, I got the chance to watch as the participants went through a practice run of many parts of the closing ceremonies, ...

The closing ceremony is just a few hours away and I am in the basement of the Olympic Stadium, having just arrived via the media transport. They advised leaving the media center early, so I took the advice and here I sit in the venue media center. As I prepare to leave Japan tomorrow, I thought I’d point out some of the things I’ve learned about Japan while I was here. First, there are a lot of bikes. Everywhere you look, there are people riding bikes. Men dressed in suits and ties with their briefcase in a basket. Women in skirts and their hair up with bags in the basket. Mothers and fathers with children in seats in the back (or in some cases, the front). There are bikes everywhere and it seems it is the way to get around. From what I have come to understand, it’s hard finding parking for cars in Tokyo, and if you do find it, it’s expensive, so bikes are the way to go. There are even dedicated bike parking spots in the entrances to buildings and around the city. The second thing may ...

It’s 8:30 p.m. on Saturday. Today has not been a very long day. In fact, I slept in the latest I have since I’ve been able to leave my hotel and I only covered two events today. But I am fried. My brain is just not functioning. You know that feeling you get when you’re almost on auto-pilot and things are just floating by you. That’s me. I have had longer days. I have had stretches of days where I’ve worked more hours and not felt this way. I think, more than anything, the tiredness is a mental fatigue more than a physical fatigue.  I am not tired of the Olympics. However, there are things about this particular experience that I am tired of. I am tired of having to remember which day it is so I can be sure to take the COVID tests on the right days. I am tired of having to fill out a health questionnaire every morning. I am tired of making sure I have enough time to catch one bus to another bus to get to a venue. I am tired of the security checks and the temperature screenings before...

Before we traveled to Tokyo, all journalists covering the Olympics were told we needed to download an app on our phones called OCHA. It is put out by the Japanese government and is meant to monitor our health while we are in the country. We register our temperature each day and answer a few questions about how we’re feeling. Thursday proved to be a big day in my OCHA life, as for the first time since I arrived, it read “cleared,” meaning I had successfully maneuvered my way through 14 days of being here without getting sick and therefore, was now clear to leave the Olympic bubble without fear of being tracked down and put in jail by the authorities. The freedom felt weird, to be honest. For two weeks, I’d been walking from my hotel to the bus, from the bus to another bus, from that bus to the venue and back, adding in the bus to the media center from time to time. Granted, it is so hot, there’s not really much desire to go anywhere beyond those locations, particularly those locations t...

The final weekend of my third Olympic journey is approaching, so I thought it would be a good time to tell you all how Tokyo has compared to Sochi and PyeongChang, not so much in how the US teams have done or how certain athletes are doing, but more in how it has been simply from a personal angle. I will put each experience in order, with the first being the best, the last being the worst in different categories.   Transportation PyeongChang, Sochi, Tokyo Tokyo ranks third on this list for one reason, and that is the simple distances we had to travel in order to get from one venue to another. In Russia and Korea, there were two places we could catch buses that would take us to other places. Here, there is just one place. If we are at a venue an hour from the Media Transport Mall, we have to ride back an hour, wait for the next bus and then ride to the next venue, however long that might take. Part of the original plan was for media to have public transportation cards (once we’ve be...

One of the joys of the Olympics, as I wrote in a previous blog post, is getting to see sports that I normally wouldn't get to cover.  One of the other cool things is seeing the sports I see on a regular basis, but executed at the absolute highest level. Nothing against any of the teams I cover, but they are not at an Olympic level and seeing them played at that level can give one much more respect almost instantly. Earlier this morning (Wednesday) I boarded another bus at the Media Transport Mall and made my way to Oi Field Hockey Stadium for a semifinal battle between Netherlands and Great Britain. Now, I have seen more than my share of field hockey games in my more than 20 years covering high school sports around New Hampshire. And I have covered some very good field hockey teams, teams that have won state championships and/or competed for state championships on the regular. However, the field hockey I saw this morning was certainly at another level, as it should be, given these ...

It's safe to say that there have been a number of surprises at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Here's a look at a few of those surprises. The US women's soccer team, before the Opening Ceremonies even took place, was shut out in the first game of the tournament by Sweden. This happened as I was driving to Logan Airport to catch my flight to Tokyo. The US women have been a dominant force over the past decade-plus, so for them to lose that badly in the opening round came as a surprise. That probably made it a little less of a surprise when the team fell short of making the final, falling in the semifinals to Canada. I think, and this is just my opinion, that maybe some of the players hung around a bit too long in search of more Olympic glory and they couldn't keep up with some of the younger teams in the competition. Without a question, this team has been an impressive force for years, but it may be time for a little new blood. The US men's basketball team also lost in its f...

  Today was a day of firsts in my Olympic experiences and as the day comes to close, reflecting back it was nice to get a couple of those firsts out of the way. As mentioned in my last blog post, today marked the first time I had applied for and received a ticket to a high-demand event. The USOPC gave me a ticket for tonight’s gymnastics events at Ariake Gymnastics Center. I wasn’t too particular about what events I was seeing, it was more about which night fit best into my schedule. And tonight was it. I am writing this as the men compete in the rings finals and I must say, that is an insane discipline. Holding themselves up in those crazy positions absolutely still is incredible. The arm strength is amazing. The women’s floor exercise is up next, with the only US gymnast of the evening competing, Jade Carey. The night is closed out by the men’s vault. I am sure this. Would have gotten more play back home if Simone Biles had not backed out of competing in the floor exercise. The o...

As accredited members of the media at the Olympics, our accreditation gets us in to almost all of the venues and events. This year, with COVID a major factor in things, the amount of space at each venue for media has been reduced, so we have to request access to the venue in advance. I have made all my requests for the time I am here and so far I have not had a single request denied, which I must say was kind of surprising. The fact that the stadiums have no fans has probably made things easier for us, since they have seemingly expanded the press tribune area to include more regular seats as needed. However, there are also events that are called "high demand events." This list includes all gymnastics medal events, all evening sessions for track and field, all medal sessions for swimming, tennis quarterfinals, semifinals and finals, men's basketball final, the handball semis and finals and the opening and closing ceremonies. In the Winter Olympics that I've been to, fi...

Today I took a ride out to the shooting venue here at the Tokyo Olympics, Asaka Shooting Range. It was a little less than an hour ride out to the range. I didn't really go there to cover anything in particular, but rather to see the venue, see a unique sport and maybe see some parts of Japan that I hadn't seen yet. So far in the week that I've been here and in the five-plus days that I have been allowed to leave my hotel room, I have seen a number of venues and events. I've checked out the one that probably gets the most play back in the United States on NBC, the Tokyo Aquatics Center, where I saw some swimming on my first night and some diving the next night. Until last night, when I went back to Yokohama Stadium to see baseball (same venue as softball gold medal game), it was the only venue I had been to twice. My first trip out was to Odaiba Marine Park for the triathlon on Monday, I also hit up the historic Nippon Budokan for some judo and Shiokaze Park for beach vo...

Today's post comes from the venue media center at Ariake Urban Sports Park. After a long bus ride back to the hotel from the arena just down the street last night (in which us passengers had to tell the driver how to find the hotel), it was back at it this morning with the hope of seeing a little BMX racing. However, Mother Nature is currently dealing us a bit of a curve ball, as it has been raining for a while and the 10 a.m. scheduled start for the racing semifinals was bumped until at least 10:45 a.m. Obviously, as a creature of habit, this throws off my planned schedule, but I will hang out in the media center and hopefully see some action on the track in a little while. Another reason to get to the track is to catch up with Alton's Dr. Tamara Lovelace, who is here as a doctor with the US Cycling Team, working at the BMX track. This is her first Olympic experience, though she has spent a few years now working for the tour traveling to various locations around the world. She...

It’s 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday in Tokyo. Lightning is flashing around the area, yet I am sitting on a metal press stand waiting for the start of the inaugural 3X3 basketball medal games. This unique basketball is new to the Olympics this year and the US women are playing in the finals. It should be an exciting evening, even if it has been a long day. Speaking of long days, I’ve been covering events for three days now, I’ve been to nine different events in eight different venues. And over that time, there has been a few people (or things) that I think deserve a little bit of a shout out and credit for what they’ve been doing. First and foremost, the many volunteers/employees who make the Olympics go. There are countless traffic control folks, security guards, arena staff, bus drivers, venue staff, military members running screening areas, Main Press Center workers and more. Many of those people have to work outside all day and in the case of some of them, they are in full dress uniform tha...

The last blog post dealt with the issues of traffic. This one will be a bit related, as it is dealing with buses. In Sochi back in 2014, I remember being incredibly impressed with how the buses managed to navigate the narrow mountain roads that led to the venues and in both Sochi and PyeongChang I was impressed by how the buses maintained a very consistent schedule, leaving on time and usually arriving on time as well. Here in Tokyo, it has been hit and miss with that whole timing thing. The buses leave the venues and the Main Transport Mall right on time. There is no doubt that they strive to be on time. However, the traffic has proven to be a problem in a lot of ways, as the buses almost never arrive on time and in some cases, like this morning, they don’t arrive at all. This morning, after checking the bus schedule, I left the hotel in the rain to go to the bus stop around the corner. The media bus was scheduled to arrive at 7:08 a.m. A group of us waited and waited with no luck. Ho...